Why won't some big new Japanese movies come out on Blu-ray? - Blu-ray Forum

F-Man · 07-26-2010, 09:06 AM

In 2007, Dororo was at the top of the Japanese box office for at least 5 weeks, yet it only came out on DVD. Recently MW from the same creator went only to DVD as well. I could list many more; it seems strange as I thought Japan had taken to Blu-ray really well, yet for new releases it seems like they don't act the same as the US studios.

OrlandoEastwood · 07-27-2010, 04:03 AM

In general, in Asia it seems, Blu-ray is seen more as luxury. Now, I know Japan is with the times like we are compared to some countries like Thailand. It's seems to be more and more English language films out on the format in Japan. Toho stopped producing the Godzilla films after 10 movies and they didn't even get close to most of everyone's favorite films from 1970's and such. Universal has the rights to Dororo here in the U.S, so, it is possible that it could get a release, but unlikely for the time being.

kannisto · 07-27-2010, 06:27 AM

It depends a lot on which studios own the movies, some of them haven't really become active with Blu-ray yet. Dororo seems to be Universal Japan property and when they released it on DVD in 2007 they weren't releasing anything on Blu-ray and their HD DVD releases seemed to be just the global titles and nothing Japan specific at the time. Now they have joined up with Geneon and they seem to be releasing just some of their biggest new Japanese titles along with their global titles.

MW seems to be owned by Amuse Soft Entertainment and they were a HD DVD studio as well and they are now releasing some Blu-ray titles but very few so far, and mostly non-Japanese titles.

I think with the current economy the Japanese catalog titles (that are only prepared for the Japan market) are not necessarily very profitable, so studios are not releasing much in the way of catalog titles and are usually just picking up the biggest new titles for Blu-ray, and some studios aren't releasing anything on Blu-ray yet.

With global titles from international studios it's a different thing as they can utilize the same work in Japan as in other markets (for the most part) and it's probably much more cost effective. The big studios are also selling a lot of global titles on Blu-ray in Japan at much lower MRSP than they used to.

F-Man · 07-27-2010, 12:59 PM

I completely forgot about Universal being formally HD DVD only. I'll try to consider more the studio angle from now on. It makes sense to check up on a studio's Blu-ray history to know ahead of time how they'll treat a new movie.

07-26-2010, 09:06 AM	#1
F-Man Senior Member Top contributor Member since:Oct 2008 Home Theater Gallery:1 4K collection:3 Blu-ray collection:282 Trading Score:1	Why won't some big new Japanese movies come out on Blu-ray? In 2007, Dororo was at the top of the Japanese box office for at least 5 weeks, yet it only came out on DVD. Recently MW from the same creator went only to DVD as well. I could list many more; it seems strange as I thought Japan had taken to Blu-ray really well, yet for new releases it seems like they don't act the same as the US studios. Last edited by F-Man; 07-26-2010 at 09:15 AM.

07-27-2010, 06:27 AM	#3
kannisto Member Member since:Nov 2009 Location:Tokyo, Japan	It depends a lot on which studios own the movies, some of them haven't really become active with Blu-ray yet. Dororo seems to be Universal Japan property and when they released it on DVD in 2007 they weren't releasing anything on Blu-ray and their HD DVD releases seemed to be just the global titles and nothing Japan specific at the time. Now they have joined up with Geneon and they seem to be releasing just some of their biggest new Japanese titles along with their global titles. MW seems to be owned by Amuse Soft Entertainment and they were a HD DVD studio as well and they are now releasing some Blu-ray titles but very few so far, and mostly non-Japanese titles. I think with the current economy the Japanese catalog titles (that are only prepared for the Japan market) are not necessarily very profitable, so studios are not releasing much in the way of catalog titles and are usually just picking up the biggest new titles for Blu-ray, and some studios aren't releasing anything on Blu-ray yet. With global titles from international studios it's a different thing as they can utilize the same work in Japan as in other markets (for the most part) and it's probably much more cost effective. The big studios are also selling a lot of global titles on Blu-ray in Japan at much lower MRSP than they used to. Last edited by kannisto; 07-27-2010 at 06:34 AM.

07-27-2010, 04:03 AM	#2
OrlandoEastwood Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Jun 2008 Location:R-Point Blu-ray reviews:86 Trading Score:24	In general, in Asia it seems, Blu-ray is seen more as luxury. Now, I know Japan is with the times like we are compared to some countries like Thailand. It's seems to be more and more English language films out on the format in Japan. Toho stopped producing the Godzilla films after 10 movies and they didn't even get close to most of everyone's favorite films from 1970's and such. Universal has the rights to Dororo here in the U.S, so, it is possible that it could get a release, but unlikely for the time being.

07-27-2010, 12:59 PM	#4
F-Man Senior Member Top contributor Member since:Oct 2008 Home Theater Gallery:1 4K collection:3 Blu-ray collection:282 Trading Score:1	I completely forgot about Universal being formally HD DVD only. I'll try to consider more the studio angle from now on. It makes sense to check up on a studio's Blu-ray history to know ahead of time how they'll treat a new movie.

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